Weightlifting Forums

Although there is nothing problematic about a back (or front) squat; a relatively simple movement; a basic exercise; the problem with the exercise emanates from the the alphabet soup crowd, i.e., academia

Satire is comatose in Gaza.

As you said, he's criticising low hanging fruit that I have also made pointed comments about. His criticisms are thinly veiled in the illogical belief that skill, flexibility and weightlifting are the answers to everything.

I think Franco Impellizzeri is generally right in saying that prevention and risk reduction is a meaningless point of semantic difference, but maybe for people like Bud it might be a more important point of distinction.

I have said before that science is plagued by measurability bias, not helped by the social structures and financial incentives within its institutions, with a lack of focus on ontology and epistemology (+logic and axiology). Data does not speak for itself, it remains silent until it is called upon. But if you do not have data, you are simply making it the fuck up.

There are few injury prevention interventions which are outstandingly shown to be effective. It seems to me that putting effort into things which increase the robustness of the athlete (physiological, skill and/or psychosocial) and otherwise reducing/minimising the stressors/demands of the athlete are the only interventions that matter.

Skill development in sport works, to a point, even when it's not cutting edge. Flexibility training works, to a point. S&C works (to a point) for both injury prevention and rehabilitation, even when it's not cutting edge. Nutrition matters for injury prevention and rehab, to a point. Lifestyle management works, to a point. Adjusting training stress into the Goldilocks zone works, to a point.
Even drugs only work to a point, and drugs are basically half magic.

We don't have any clear evidence on what actually reduces risk of injury. Bud has arguments based on mechanisms but logic rarely stands up in the physio-logical world. Flexibility and skill are not well supported as actually reducing risk of injury in sport.

Side note: I'd strongly suggest that motor learning adaptations are quite specific; learning to do weightlifting probably has very little, if any transfer to improving skill in other sports. The physiological adaptations are typically beneficial, of course. But I'd be amazed if someone is able to throw, kick, run, jump in a more skillful way after learning how to snatch or jerk, compared to I don't know, practising their sport in a variety of conditions and constraints.

This is hardly an Earth shattering remark but I have little doubt that the same athletes who survive the meat grinder of centralised big state programs can utilizse the SAID principle better than anyone else. They're probably gonna put up monster totals regardless of whether you pay a staff of therapeutic providers or not - and I think that is largely Bud's focus. I cant recall many offerings from him discussing anything but A and B session lifters.

For the C session onwards lifters, they will fall by the wayside without greater sophistication of their training. The myriad of weightlifting practitioners now are recreational level, both Senior and Masters who now make up the marketplace of the sport. That creates a new culture around the sport and it penetrates back into the national programs. I think there is a great question to have about whether therapeutic intervention culture can breed a hypersensitivity to pain sense. I dont think think Bud phrases it quite like that though.

https://www.sportivnypress.com/2023/sem ... ambiguity/

New Bud article, taking pot shots at Western sports medicine and sports science. Despite the lack of rigour in his writing and his myopic perspective, I think that he is more right than wrong. The notion of the inherently fragile female athlete is nonsensical.

There are of course, factors which increase injury rate in women's sport cmpared to men but they are largely socially driven rather than purely physiological (e.g. lack of funding, S&C, power dynamics, eating disorders etc). As such, these factors are highly specific to a given situation.

Bud fails to note that the reason that ACL and Achilles ruptures are infrequent in weightlifting is because they aren't loaded in the same way as other sports. I reckon football/soccer probably doesn't have many biceps brachii tears, maybe strongmen should learn from them.

Weightlifting's lower incidence of injury is probably largely down to its simplicity, predictability and controlability. Not because it is uniquely special as a prophylactic against injuries. The lack of an endurance/fatigue component also allows athletes to be somewhat more specialised in their physical and technical development.

I think physical preparation and skill development can reduce the incidence of injury in sport, but when you push yourself to the, shit happens. Injury adaptation and resilience should be the goal of preparatory training and skill development, rather than trying to return to pre-injury status or decreeing that an injury is necessarily catastrophic. And of course, to be antifragile, it helps to have multiple strategies to deal with the forces of sport, not just elastic strength and flexibility.

He's back, and we're talking about the training and performance of the lower leg.

"Research of the effectiveness of this technique is unnecessary as sufficient empirical evidence exists to dispel doubters."

Instead of a review of the World Cup or the qualification and anticipation for Paris, Bud adds to his observations about the prevalence of injuries in US team sports - this time hamstrings.

I love how all, but one, of his citations are himself.

I read this a few days ago and forgot to post it.

Same old tired bullshit. I do happen to think that the Nordic Curl is overrated. Nordic curls are good when you're dealing with people who don't want to go to the gym. A well designed seated leg curl (less load in the shortened position) and good mornings/high incline back extensions will probably be better in the gym, and sprint training (specific + variations) on the track.

However, non-traumatic injury is multifaceted and not purely a question of mechanics or training. In the case of sport (admittedly moreso semipro level), I usually see it as a mechanical trigger to an ecological peoblem. Nutrition, sleep, cumulative stress (non-training and training stress) and the nature of the sport itself are important factors. I'd argue more important than minor training details.

An excessive training and/or competition schedule cannot be fully ameliorated by minor optimisations in S&C. Overtraining can also be general or specific, too much training of a particular movement and tissues can result in repetitive stress injuries. The affected areas sometimes have localised (unwanted) metabolic changes, probably not a coincidence.

An athlete I am coaching has been relatively injury free until recently (slammed into another guy at speed), but his teammates have had quadriceps and hamstring strains made worse by overtraining sprints because of the "deficit" in performance caused by the injury. Predictably, the team S&C coach is the head coach's personal friend.

The comparison to weightlifting is also unfair because weightlifting is a much more predictable sport with near zero endurance/fatigue component. That is not true of NFL or basketball.

brian.degennaro wrote: ↑Tue Jul 23, 2024 2:08 am I love how all, but one, of his citations are himself.

New Charniga article just dropped. Apparently Borat was a Soviet Scientist.

Fact vs Fiction: Part I

Yet, what passes for knowledge in academia is stuck in the static strength era of weightlifting: more muscles, short stature, more static strength translate to bigger weights lifted... The belief short weightlifters have the advantage; and, lifters with thicker muscles and proportionally more myo-filaments will dominate the sport are myths; yet, are still passed on as fact today.

Yet provides stout and muscular Best Korea athlete as photo example with this statement.

The belief fixing the weight at the chest or overhead is inconsequential to obtaining benefit from the weightlifting exercises is a myth; the basis of which has several facets.

No disagreement with this statement. The benefit of changing directions in weightlifting exercises is the real benefit of these exercises, not "power" development.

"Myth of triple extension"

Agreed, triple extension is just a description of what is happening in the kinematics of the movement. The same holds true in sprinting and jumping events too.

On the contrary, the power of the thigh muscles is more effectively transferred to the feet when the heels raise, i.e., triggering an inter-compensation of energy to the support. This reflex engages the biarticular gastrocnemius, a thigh muscle; which in turn, results in a speedy extension of the foot; delivering more energy to the support than is possible from the nearly extended knees (Schenau, 1989).

Debatable regarding the premature heel rise in the pull phase. This can lead people to believe that this is unnecessary to correct because Charniga says that this is okay without emphasizing and ensuring that balance in the athlete-barbell system is maintained over the area of balance.

The salient skill – of – strength in weightlifting is the ability to lift a slow-moving barbell. The maximum vertical speed of the barbell recedes along with the increase in its weight. Weightlifting involves a complex interplay of internal work, which is the mechanical energy produced to move body segments and the body as whole; and external work, or the mechanical energy produced to move the barbell (Latash, Zatsiorsky, 2016)... That is besides the fact that since the aim is to lift a maximum weight; the speed of the barbell recedes as the weight increases. Consequently, the speed of muscle relaxation and the lifter’s speed of movement are the crucial speeds; not the barbell speed

This needs to be emphasized to weightlifting coaches who are obsessing over velocity based training and focusing on improving their peak velocity at sub and maximal weights, rather than utilizing it as maybe a tool to train lifting submaximal weights at maximal velocities. The inability to fixate the barbell moving at less than "normal" perceived speed is a big issue I see amongst lifters transitioning from beginner to intermediate and even elite levels of movement/weights.

The obvious, in this context, is outside the stilted ‘science of loose ligaments and fragile knees’ emanating from USA academia. Fully flexing knees, hips and ankles; stretches tendons and ligaments. It does not make these tissues susceptible to injury; on the contrary they become less susceptible. Springy tendons and ligaments are capable of dissipating and/or re – distributing mechanical energy; unlike ‘tight’ tendons and ligaments which are more likely to fail over time from sudden movements and lack of ‘springy’, stretchy’ activities... Restricting bending at the knee to a maximum of 80 – 90º for safety; has the opposite effect: the largest moments on the knee joints occur at this range of joint angles; and, as a consequence of avoidance springy qualities of tendons and ligaments is neglected.

I agree that full squats are most beneficial. I disagree that tight tendons are the cause of injury in the ways that Charniga has argued in the past (high repetitions and less than full ROM). Injuries are largely a result of poor load management and recovery and less to due with exercises and reps.

It should go without saying, that since fast squatting is a necessity in weightlifting; bouncing is not dangerous either. In point of fact, the fast squatting and bouncing characteristic of the classic exercises is necessary to performing the exercises correctly; while at the same time facilitates the elastic qualities of the ligaments and tendons.

Agreed but dismissing slower eccentrics and isometrics is a disservice to training variety and load management. Many athletes that I train who only bounce and freefall their squats tend to have anterior knee pain and absolutely no eccentric control. They are unable to put the brakes on the bar at any point in the eccentric phase. This is a useful skill to develop in my experience because I notice better maximal strength and hypertrophy development, as well as reduced tendon issues.

Furthermore, the curves (cervical, tyhoracic, lumbar) in the human spine are adaptations to vertical posture (bipedal locomotion) and as such are poorly suited to strain with the trunk close to or at a horizontal disposition.

I find Charniga's emphasis on vertical squatting just as problematic as the NSCA type of squat where nearly vertical shins are encouraged, because Charniga's style of squat involves very little hip flexion. The truth lies somewhere in the middle here where we want to have relatively equal flexion of the hips, knees, and ankles while squatting results in better balance in the athlete-barbell system and adequate strain amongst all the muscle groups of the lower body.

Traps

Traps are also utilized a lot in supporting the barbell overhead which Charniga forgets.

The myth of the gluteus maximus as the main source of the weightlifter’s power has more to do with powerlifting; which has almost nothing in common with weightlifting (see Charniga, https://www.sportivnypress.com/2019/dis ... -training/).

Very much agreed that the glutes offer little to the actual propulsion of the barbell. As Charniga wrote back in 2007 even, the glutes' role in the Olympic lifts is postural during the pull - to prevent the lifter from toppling forward during the pull phase. In my experience this holds up as well. Direct glute training has resulted in lifters maintaining better angles during the pull phase of the lift and avoid too dramatic and unnecessary change in trunk angle during the pull.

brian.degennaro wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 4:58 pm

Yet, what passes for knowledge in academia is stuck in the static strength era of weightlifting: more muscles, short stature, more static strength translate to bigger weights lifted... The belief short weightlifters have the advantage; and, lifters with thicker muscles and proportionally more myo-filaments will dominate the sport are myths; yet, are still passed on as fact today.

Yet provides stout and muscular Best Korea athlete as photo example with this statement.

Classic Charniga contradiction.He's not entirely wrong though. Anyway China, Venezuela and so on are producing well muscled lifters who are winning stuff in the year 2024.

brian.degennaro wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 4:58 pm

On the contrary, the power of the thigh muscles is more effectively transferred to the feet when the heels raise, i.e., triggering an inter-compensation of energy to the support. This reflex engages the biarticular gastrocnemius, a thigh muscle; which in turn, results in a speedy extension of the foot; delivering more energy to the support than is possible from the nearly extended knees (Schenau, 1989).

Debatable regarding the premature heel rise in the pull phase. This can lead people to believe that this is unnecessary to correct because Charniga says that this is okay without emphasizing and ensuring that balance in the athlete-barbell system is maintained over the area of balance.

I think neither option is inherently more or less efficient but don't have data on this.

IMO it depends on the athlete's build and physiology, which ultimately determines how much tradeoff can occur between the different joints in order to provide the minimal loss of vertical impulse in the middle of the pull and maximise the increase in vertical impulse from the first and second pulls.

For those who have particularly weak knee/hip/back strength, this is probably true (think Peng Cuiting). This of course plays into Charniga's bias of his beliefs about the ideal mechanics of the lifts and his typically minimalist approach to squatting and pulling exercises. On the other hand, training systems that traditionally emphasise a large amount of squatting and over-the-bar deadlifting strength (e.g. Russia, USA, UK) may have better force transmission through a flat foot.

The way I teach people is probably more biased towards the flat foot than the heel raised start of the second pull, but as long as someone is well balanced through the lift, with the bar moving relatively vertically (minimal swing), consistently I don't care.

brian.degennaro wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 4:58 pm

The salient skill – of – strength in weightlifting is the ability to lift a slow-moving barbell. The maximum vertical speed of the barbell recedes along with the increase in its weight. Weightlifting involves a complex interplay of internal work, which is the mechanical energy produced to move body segments and the body as whole; and external work, or the mechanical energy produced to move the barbell (Latash, Zatsiorsky, 2016)... That is besides the fact that since the aim is to lift a maximum weight; the speed of the barbell recedes as the weight increases. Consequently, the speed of muscle relaxation and the lifter’s speed of movement are the crucial speeds; not the barbell speed

This needs to be emphasized to weightlifting coaches who are obsessing over velocity based training and focusing on improving their peak velocity at sub and maximal weights, rather than utilizing it as maybe a tool to train lifting submaximal weights at maximal velocities. The inability to fixate the barbell moving at less than "normal" perceived speed is a big issue I see amongst lifters transitioning from beginner to intermediate and even elite levels of movement/weights.

Yes. Tempo snatches (enforced either by counting or a metronome) can help with this to some degree. No hook or high hang snatches too.

There is a time and place to work on high velocity training certainly, but I find it's probably best suited as GPP work, or for lifters who already are comfortable making lifts at slow velocities.

brian.degennaro wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 4:58 pm

Furthermore, the curves (cervical, tyhoracic, lumbar) in the human spine are adaptations to vertical posture (bipedal locomotion) and as such are poorly suited to strain with the trunk close to or at a horizontal disposition.

I find Charniga's emphasis on vertical squatting just as problematic as the NSCA type of squat where nearly vertical shins are encouraged, because Charniga's style of squat involves very little hip flexion. The truth lies somewhere in the middle here where we want to have relatively equal flexion of the hips, knees, and ankles while squatting results in better balance in the athlete-barbell system and adequate strain amongst all the muscle groups of the lower body.

I agree with you in terms of my bias at least.

To play devil's advocate, squats are a simply a preparatory exercise and so whether they are done in the knee dominant, hip dominant or "balanced" ways should depend on the rest of the training program and how it is performed. Certainly a program with only extremely vertical squats and a lack of hip/back strengthening work would make technical development very difficult.

In the end I think there are three types of lower body strength exercises that should be addressed

• Knee/quadriceps strength
• Hip extension strength with knee extension demand (largely glute/adductor)
• Hamstring strength

However that is achieved depends on the coach and lifter. Some might do vertical squats and pulls. Some might put an emphasis on heavy squats and good mornings or hyperextensions. Some might ignore the hamstrings entirely. There are many methodologies that have worked well enough to win gold medals.

brian.degennaro wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 4:58 pm

Traps

Traps are also utilized a lot in supporting the barbell overhead which Charniga forgets.

Shrug is a cue, not a line of code. It can be used or discarded as necessary.

As for the support of the bar overhead, Charniga will probably say that a large muscular contractile effort is not required, simply support it with your shoulder stability skill, skeleton and elastic tissues /s

brian.degennaro wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 4:58 pm Very much agreed that the glutes offer little to the actual propulsion of the barbell. As Charniga wrote back in 2007 even, the glutes' role in the Olympic lifts is postural during the pull - to prevent the lifter from toppling forward during the pull phase. In my experience this holds up as well. Direct glute training has resulted in lifters maintaining better angles during the pull phase of the lift and avoid too dramatic and unnecessary change in trunk angle during the pull.

Glutes, adductors and controversially, the lumbar erectors all act in a quasi-isometric fashion in the first pull (yes, the erectors work concentrically too). I think this is why deep back squats are a good developer of the strength in the first pull, and why lifters will typically complain of sore adductors and glutes following first pull work or paused back squats.

In my experience, heavy and/or high repetition snatch/clean deadlifts seem to do little more for first pull positional strength than regular snatch or clean pulls (105% or less).

My conjecture is that with large weights, a major part of learning to snatch/clean deadlift more weight is simply minimising the hip extension demands off the floor. This is done by shifting the CoP and CoM backwards and flexing the spine. I see this from China quite often. Not inherently injurious thankfully, but it doesn't seem to strengthen the first pull outside of simply adding more general muscle/strength.

The ability to utilise that strength seems to largely depend on how much attention is paid to first pull mechanics in the classic lifts, particularly being patient enough to work in the Goldilocks zone of not too fast, not too slow velocity through the first pull.

brian.degennaro wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 4:58 pm Agreed but dismissing slower eccentrics and isometrics is a disservice to training variety and load management. Many athletes that I train who only bounce and freefall their squats tend to have anterior knee pain and absolutely no eccentric control. They are unable to put the brakes on the bar at any point in the eccentric phase. This is a useful skill to develop in my experience because I notice better maximal strength and hypertrophy development, as well as reduced tendon issues.

I think this is a theory vs practice moment. Certainly the ability to deal with fast eccentrics is important, but part of that IMO is being able to hit the brakes as you say and control the bar regardless of the speed. Chris Beadsley makes an argument that excessively slow eccentrics negatively impact muscular hypertrophy through poor recruitment and an increase in calcium-ion related fatigue. I'm not sure I'd go that far though.

I'm not a particular fan of very slow tempo squats (e.g. 3s eccentric) outside of motor learning for absolute beginners and quadriceps or patellar tendinopathy rehabilitation. Higher load squats and loads/accelerations that induce sufficient tendon strain are what is important for connective tissue adaptation.

Following that, what your squatting should look like depends on what the rest of your program looks like. Strength is not really a physiological quality, it is a measurement of an amalgamation of physical qualities. If someone does lots of heavy quick lifts into a deep squat (e.g. in a peaking phase), they might want to squat a bit slower down to reduce the risk of injury. Others will obviously need to focus more on elastic squatting, with a decrease in load. It just depends on the totality of the program.